


A Hurricane of Confusion

by crazysnakey



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spirited Away, Alternate Universe - Spirits, Gen, Spirited Away AU, Spirits, all of the characters here only have a part of their name (like one or two characters), because they couldn't NOT eat the random food that was just left out there at an abandoned site, bon appétit, do i even need to explain this?, going by that thing where every person there has part of their name taken, gundham is haku, hajime is chihiro, in case that wasn't obvious, like really, mahiru's just putting up with all this on the side, setting is hope's peak academy, so hajime is basically trying to save his parents, so their names may sound different or weird, whatever enjoy my horrible writing i guess, why isn't there an official tag for this there are so many fics for it, yes its haunted
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:08:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24995884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazysnakey/pseuds/crazysnakey
Summary: Hajime had no idea it would turn out like this. One minute he was checking out the abandoned building of Hope's Peak Academy, the next the entire place was lit up and haunted, his parents had turned into animals, spirits, which are apparently a thing, were roaming everywhere, and on top of that he had absolutely no idea what to do whatsoever. The only person he could trust was a mysterious boy who for some reason, despite being a spirit himself, was helping him.Well.This was one hell of a road trip.
Relationships: Hinata Hajime & Tanaka Gundham, Koizumi Mahiru & Hinata Hajime
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	1. Okay, what the hell is happening?

The sky was especially bright today, Hajime couldn’t help but notice as he stared out the window.

Even if it was still the afternoon, the sky was an abnormally light blue, intense in its brightness. Clouds wafted lazily along, and the sun was nowhere to be seen, though Hajime knew that it was there somewhere. He could feel the afternoon heat warming him in the back seat of the car. His parents sat in the front, with his Dad at the wheel and his Mom holding the map and navigating the way. Right now, a silence had settled over the car and its inhabitants, save for the sounds of the car moving across the road.

Slowly, Hajime broke it. “Hey, Mom?”

“Yes?”

“How long have we been on the road now?”

“About three and a half hours. Really, why are you even asking something like that? Knowing how long it’s been won’t make time speed up. We’ll get there when we get there.”

“...Alright.” He hadn’t even asked about when they’d get there or how long that would take.

So they’d been on the road for over three hours now, on their way to four. He’d already spent most of that time reading books - his bag and stuff were scattered on the seat adjacent to his. But eventually he had grown bored. Books only entertained for so much once they were finished. So right now he was just leaning against the door’s window, staring outside at nothing. He was honestly hoping that he’d just eventually dissociate and have the rest of the trip fly by like the blink of an eye. Like those cliche cartoons.

Hajime and his parents were currently on their way to what would soon be their new home. Hajime didn’t know much about the place itself, but he knew why they were moving there. His parents had been offered a job opportunity and they’d accepted it. Their new home was apparently a relatively sized city surrounded by rural areas, smaller than where they had been before. Which meant it was also less populated.

That was fine by Hajime. He wasn’t exactly the best in crowded spaces or easy at making friends - most of them he’d call acquaintances more. He wasn’t really sure if the problem was him or just those people and the way they’d interacted with him. Those relationships usually consisted of them prattling about themselves and their interests and problems to him, with him offering minimal responses and advice in return. Half the time he’d been delegated to some student counselor than friend. He didn’t know what was worse sometimes - having people dump their thoughts and problems on him with no regard for his side, or just being completely ignored.

 _Well, at least they acknowledged my existence…_ though he found that that thought didn’t comfort him as much as he’d expected it to.

His eyes were drawn to the grass, rushing by them as they moved. Under the bright sun and near-clear sky, the grass was a brilliant, vibrant green, seemingly without end. Almost hypnotizing in its placidity. In fact, Hajime found his gaze locked on to the grass, lulled by its ease. If only life could be as simple...

He didn’t know how long he stared at it, his mind slipping away from his worries and looming thought of the reality waiting ahead for when they arrived, but when the car suddenly came to a stop he jerked out of it, blinking bewilderedly.

There were no city or new buildings in sight. Had they run out of gas or something?

But then he heard the unmistakable sound of a car door opening then closing twice, confirming his parents had gotten out of the car. His Mom gestured for him to come out through his window, so he did, satchel slung across his chest, confusion on his face.

His parents were standing, facing a ruined building - or entrance? that appeared to be old and dusty, covered with vines. It was clear that this place hadn’t been inhabited or used for a long time, which begged the question, what was it?

“What is this place?” He turned to his parents, instantly noticing something about them. They almost seemed… excited, or something. His mom walked over to him, smiling broadly. She took him by the shoulder and brought him before the old building.

“Hajime, do you know what this is?” The question took him off guard. What, was this something important somehow?

He shrugged. “An old building?”

She shook her head. “No, not exactly. You’re partly right - _past_ this is an old building. But this is meant to be the gate - the entrance.”

He blinked at her. Okay, so? “Entrance to what?”

His dad answered this time. “The entrance to what was once Hope’s Peak Academy.”

That answer caught Hajime off guard completely - he felt as though he’d been punched in the stomach for a second. _“Hope’s Peak Academy?”_

His parents both nodded at him.

He paused. “Wait - really? I didn’t know that Hope’s Peak was on the way we were heading!”

His mom shrugged. “Well, to be honest, we didn’t realize it either till we’d seen the map. It’s an old map, so it still had Hope’s Peak on it as a landmark. All we did was take a right instead of going straight ahead, but no matter! We can take a look around here, and then get back to the road!”

Hajime almost wanted to cry from happiness - especially right after what had been such a boring trip. Not only that he would get to see Hope’s Peak Academy up close and personal for himself, but that his parents had taken the time out to even do this made him feel inexplicably comforted.

Hajime had always felt as though communication between him and his parents were very minimal. They never really talked or held conversations - just greetings and questions and small snippets of compliments. Dealing with his parents that he barely talked to and the people at school who held one-sided conversations with him for themselves, he’s always wanted to be acknowledged, but more than that, truly appreciated. For someone to put a hand on his shoulder or thump him on the back and go, “Hey, Hajime, thanks for listening to me. You’re really cool. Wanna hang out and talk sometime?” Preferably with it being an actual two-sided conversation.

So, suffice it to say, he had never thought that his parents considered his interests or cared much about them, between their work and simple home life. Hope’s Peak Academy had been a recurring one Hajime had had over the last few years.

Apparently it had been the biggest and most prestigious institute in the whole world. They annually recruited the best of the best, the most talented in their area, and those who they saw as capable of becoming something prominent in the future. They were so renowned for this that those who they chose to attend were considered ‘the future hope of the world’.

As a child, Hajime had been enamored with Hope’s Peak and had wanted to go there - until he’d found out it had closed down and promptly been abandoned. Apparently they had been doing some shady stuff with their funds and resources, which escalated into a scandal right before the school fell to ruin - no one knew for what, but it was known that it was for something that was generally looked upon with a frown.

But still, Hajime had wanted to see it with his own eyes, to walk the same halls that so many amazing people had walked through. It couldn’t be that hard, right? It wasn’t anything complicated. Just a simple visit. He just couldn’t put it to rest until he’d done that. Some people had called him an ‘obsessed fanboy’ over it. But still. Still.

Hajime had resigned himself to waiting until he was an adult living on his own until he’d ever end up visiting or going to take a look - his parents never really seemed to pay him any mind with it.

Now, though, seeing that they’d actually put some thought into it and decided to do something like this… Hajime felt so grateful. Grateful beyond measure.

“Is… is it okay with you both, though?” he asked apprehensively, even though he had already made up his mind on entering whether they agree or not. Formalities.

“Of course it is!” replied his Mom, almost indignant at his hesitation. His Dad nodded. “We came all the way here, didn’t we? May as well go in and look!”

“...Okay then, let’s go already!” Hajime exclaimed, already running past them into the gate’s entrance, his parents chuckling as they followed.

The entrance was... not what it had seemed from the outside. On the outside, it looked like a simple door to walk through, but once he entered he found that it was actually a tunnel. Hajime walked along it, seeing a distant light at the end ahead of him. He could hear footsteps echoing behind him along his own - no doubt his parents.

…

…

Wow, this tunnel was _long._

When he reached the end, it took Hajime a minute to place himself and adjust his eyes. But once he did, he’s rewarded with an amazing sight - much more than he’d expected.

Ahead of him, there was a river with a bridge over it, beyond which is a gigantic, wide clearing moving upwards like a hill, with what looks like a lake surrounding the school and its campus, almost like a moat in a way, but with another bridge over it to cross. But what was beyond that was even more exciting. He couldn’t see it clearly but he could tell that there were a lot of short buildings, like little houses or cottages, with a large building towering over all the rest.

Unable to contain himself, Hajime turned to his parents, who had emerged from the tunnel, and shouted, “C’mon!” Without waiting for an answer, he dashed over the bridge.

When he was standing at the end of the bridge, he looked around.

_Whoa, this isn’t just a simple school!_

Then again, Hope’s Peak had been the best of the best.

There were tents and small makeshift counters all along the front campus, with old lanterns hanging from them. There were so goddamn many of them - Hajime didn’t remember reading about anything like this at all with Hope’s Peak. The field of houses was almost the size of a soccer field, and that was saying something.

They all looked relatively dusty, but not as much as Hajime had expected if this place had really been abandoned for years. At the very end he could see a tall, gray, worn-down building with dark blue windows, which somehow looked even older than the numerous cottages in front of it.

Hajime and his parents walked along the small paths between the tents and counters. Hajime was mainly focused on the big building up ahead, but he couldn’t help but also notice that the insides of the small houses and tents weren’t very dusty or old, as much as it should have been.

His parents seemed to notice this too, as they entered one of them, which he could see into from his position outside. Inside were some books and cupboards, and what seemed to be a kitchen. They told Hajime that they’d be here looking around in the meantime and to just go and enjoy everything, but not waste too much time. When he was ready to leave, his Mom said, they would be here until then to go to the car together.

So with that, Hajime just continued walking straight ahead to the biggest building at the end. There was a small hill, which he climbed, and another bridge over a body of water, like before, except that this bridge was much bigger. Hajime passed over it - and stopped right in front of the doorway. Up close, it was even more huge, towering over him. He found himself craning his neck back to see the whole of it.

_Ah, there it is!_

At the very top of the building, a large monochrome crest was affixed to the outer wall with a symbol on it. The symbol showed a badge with wings on both sides of it. The badge had a pen and a jagged line crossed over each other diagonally, with a royal crown on top.

Hajime’s seen it before in pictures - The insignia of Hope’s Peak academy. Though here it looked worn out and rusty compared to the ones on the internet, as expected.

Unable to contain himself for once, Hajime almost leapt through the door, looking around. The inside was shadowed, but the light filtering through the many windows provided enough light to see around the halls.

Tentatively, he walked down one of the hallways from the main entrance. Most of it is simple on the outside - lockers and boards with old posters detailing events that have long since passed.

He looked inside one door. A simple classroom, with a chalkboard at the head and sixteen student desks. Meh. Boring.

There are a bunch of classrooms, but once Hajime reached the end of those, he found the dorms, including the cafeteria, the gym and somehow an entire fucking sauna just… there?

He spent some time longer in the more impressive rooms - such as the swimming pool and rec room - he was still hung up on how the swimming pool can be on the second floor, directly above the gym of all things. _Aren’t those usually on the ground level…?_

He was honestly amazed at the sheer level of _everything_ the school had and how they even managed it all.

The school only got more incredible from there - an art room full of sculptures, an entire physics lab with some kind of colossal machine which is for God knows what, a room full of expensive-looking computers and monitors, a dojo room with sakura trees that have long wilted, an entire garden in one of the top floors, and some kind of lab with freezers that were styled like beds. The hell? What, did people put dead bodies in those? Maybe to dissect or something… That thought sent a chill down his spine. Maybe that had been the “shady business” that shut the school down. But still, Hajime finds himself marveling at everything.

_This is all so unreal… How do they even put all of this stuff into one building?! Seriously... They must have had one hell of a budget…_

Hajime spent what must have been hours in the building, looking around and checking out everything in almost every room of interest. _So this is where the future hopes of the world spent their time learning… it’s all state of the art. Amazing…_

By the time Hajime actually bothered to check how long it had been, the sky was slightly darker - about evening if he had to guess. _Guess I better go now..._

He’d been walking down the stairs on the second floor when he noticed a door that he hadn’t seen before - a big reddish wooden pair of double doors. Clearly it wasn't a simple classroom. It couldn’t hurt to take a look, could it…? Hurriedly, Hajime opened it, slipping through. The door closed with a click behind him.

This was… a library.

It made sense. For all of Hope’s Peak Academy’s installations and rooms, a library was one of the most basic things in any school.

Shelves upon shelves line the walls and were arranged in rows after one another, all stuffed with books. Everything was covered in dust.

He wasn’t gonna spend too much time here. Just take a quick look and go, since libraries were pretty common everywhere in schools. But maybe Hope’s Peak had some special things.

Hajime wandered around the shelves aimlessly, looking around. The books were arranged into genres - fiction, romance, fantasy, non-fiction, classics, historical - basically everything.

Something small and gleaming to the side caught his eye, and Hajime looked to see a door in the corner of the room, which was slightly ajar, but that wasn't what caught his attention. What had caught his attention is that it seemed like there was a gold light shining through it. What could that be?

He peeked through the door before entering, to see a small, hexagonal room. It was rather stuffy too, not someplace that was visited often, even when the school was active. Clearly older and more abandoned than everything else, too - there was dust all over the papers and equipment here. Now inside, Hajime looked around the cramped room for whatever was there, only to find something rather… mundane.

On one of the wall shelves facing the door, there was a large book with a plain red cover and bright gold clasp - which had been the source of the light.

 _Seriously? Just some old book?_ So much for something interesting… Hajime reached out to grab it, before stopping as he realized something.

Everything else here, from the papers to the books to the equipment, was covered in dust and lint, time and abandonment having worn them out, but...

This book was... oddly clean. There wasn’t dust or anything on it, and the gold clasp was literally shining, as though it had just been polished!

This drove a wedge of apprehension in Hajime, which shouldn’t be there. He was supposed to be enjoying this! Why was this book different from all the others? Had someone else been here recently? The second idea was more believable - after all, there may have been others who wanted to visit the once-great school as well.

Carefully, he picked up the book, and left the confining room to get a better view. There was no light in there. In the library, however, there was some light - not much, but enough.

He propped the book on a table and opened it.

What he found were photos - photos of peoples’ faces and their names alongside them. It only took him a split second to realize what this was. A yearbook!? Indeed, it was a yearbook of Hope’s Peak Academy and several of their classes from years prior - the yearbook itself was a little over two decades old.

Next to each person’s photo, along with their name, their Ultimate title was written as well, to show what each person specialized in. Hajime’s eyes scanned along the page he was currently on, titled ‘Class 77-B’. This class had certainly been a colorful bunch, that was for sure.

Ibuki Mioda, Ultimate Musician... Kazuichi Souda, Ultimate Mechanic… Mahiru Koizumi, Ultimate Photographer… Mikan Tsumiki, Ultimate Nurse… the list went on.

Hajime looked from side to side apprehensively. There was no one else here… No one would mind or care if he took this with him, right…? It’s not like it would be a problem… He closed the book and, looking up, he realized that there was barely any light from the windows. Huh? He looked outside, only to see that the sun had set. There was only a faint orange hue in the sky now, which Hajime knew would disappear in a short while. His parents were probably waiting impatiently for him! _Shit…! I got too carried away!_

Hopefully they wouldn’t mind just this once, though, as it was the one day he’d get to visit the legendary school, so they could make some concessions on this one, couldn’t they?

With that in mind, Hajime dashed through the halls and down the stairs, yearbook still clutched in his hand, running faster than he’d ever run before. While he was hoping his parents wouldn’t mind, a part of him was still panicking, his thoughts a scrambled mess of _dammit dammit dammit._

He felt something itching and tingling at the hand holding the yearbook as he ran through the doors.

When he reached the entrance and crossed the bridge, he skidded to a stop in shock, staring at the sight before him. He couldn't believe what he was seeing.

The miniature town of tents and counters, which should have been abandoned and uninhabited, suddenly have lanterns hanging from their sides, which Hajime was 100% sure _weren’t_ there when he had passed by them. The lanterns were all lit as well, adding to the confusion.

Hajime had no idea where the fuck this all came from - yes, this definitely warranted a ‘fuck’ - and how. Was this some kind of elaborate prank or something? There was no way his parents had done this - it had to be someone else.

The strange feeling in his left hand suddenly intensified, grabbing his focus, which made him look down at his arm, only to sway on his feet for a second. There were strange black spots dancing before his eyes, blurring everything for a moment.

Holding his hand up with the book still held on tightly, he saw something red like a rash spreading from the book to his hand, already covering his fingertips.

As if he’d been set on fire, Hajime dropped the book unceremoniously on the ground with a yelp, and the strange rash receded, turning his hand back to normal. Okay. Okay.

What... the _fuck_ … had just happened?!

This was already too much - first he’d spent too long in the building, probably earning his parents’ wrath on that, then the whole place had lit up somehow, and now the book had quite literally tried to infect him. Great. Hajime groaned audibly and looked down.

Apprehensively, he eyed the book, now lying on the floor harmlessly, as if it hadn’t just tried to infect him or whatever the hell that had been. He knelt down and poked it. Nothing happened.

_God, I hate when things get confusing like this. I hold it and it pulls that weird shit on me, but I just poke it and nothing happens. Why can’t anything ever be simple?_

He tried touching the book with a finger and holding it there for a few seconds. Again, nothing happened. Maybe he’d just imagined it or something. Yeah, he’d just panicked because of how his parents would react to him being so late.

Sighing, Hajime picked up the book and began climbing down the hill down to see what’s going on better and find his parents when he felt that strange tingling sensation on his hand again, and looked to see the red rash from before appearing again on his hand.

This time he just flung the book away from him as far as possible - it landed a few feet away harmlessly, by the bridge.

Now Hajime was genuinely confused and suspicious of this book. He’d touched it and there hadn’t been anything, why was it doing this? Was it because he picked it up instead of just touching it?

Sheesh, talk about being oddly specific. What the hell.

So he couldn’t take the book. But it was a Hope’s Peak Academy yearbook! He didn’t really care that much for the students, but it had information on the school and its history!

And he... he _wanted_ to take it with him.

First things first, though, he had to find his parents and whatever the hell was going on here. But he didn’t want to just leave the book lying around though… Suddenly he got an idea.

Opening his satchel, Hajime spilled out the books that were in there, which landed unceremoniously on the ground, and stepped over to the book and pushed at it with his foot, moving it slightly. Slowly and carefully he picked the book up with the ends of his fingers.

Then quick as a viper he stuffed it into his satchel, letting go of it as soon as it was in there.

He stood there for a moment admiring himself for his genius move.

Then in his next step he tripped over the pile of his books.

Everything went as if in slow motion. As he fell over, the strap was tugged and flew off his neck, and the satchel fell over the side of the ledge next to the bridge and out of sight.

For a second, Hajime blinked, his mind blank, and then he got up and ran, looking over the edge. He heaved a sigh of relief, seeing that it hadn’t fallen into the water - the satchel had fallen onto a small foundation of rock under the bridge - safe but out of reach.

What should he do? Try to reach over and grab it? No, he’d fall over himself before he did. Get something to help? He looked around. There was nothing, and time was running out. Well, it was already out. He couldn't think he was losing his mind worrying and thinking over this–

No, calm down. Things wouldn’t be fixed if he panicked like that. He looked down at his satchel, with the yearbook inside it. _Well, shit._

But this was okay. He could always come back later and get it - after all, the school was less than an hour away from where he was going with his parents. From the looks of it, apart from whoever was pulling the prank of lighting the houses, no one really came around here anymore. And besides, even if someone did, they probably wouldn’t look under the bridge. Why would they? As far as they knew there was nothing.

He was still worried about everything, though. The book, what was going on, his parents, the time...

Suddenly a deep voice spoke from behind him, startling him. “What are you doing there?”

Hajime started and jumped up, turning to face the mysterious person, who had definitely not been there a minute ago. They– He? was a sight to behold.

Standing in front of him was a young man, who looked to be around Hajime’s age, if slightly older. He had pale gray skin and heterochromic eyes, one red and one gray. There’s– whoa. A jagged scar, reminiscent of lightning, ran over his left eye, which was the gray one. Hajime felt a pang of concern for that - _What the hell could make a scar like that? How could he even see out of that eye?_ The boy’s hair was black with streaks of gray, slicked up and styled into an upwards curl.

On top of the boy’s weird facial looks, he was wearing rather... oddly _formal_ clothes that didn’t really fit the idea of an abandoned school. Ceremonial robes, colored magenta and white, with a sash around the middle and black boots. To top it all off, he was wearing a thick purple scarf, wrapped around his neck.

Hajime internally went from confusion at the boy’s sudden appearance to relief that someone else is here with him to explain what’s going on, then suspicion because wait, who was this guy, where’d he come from and what’s he doing here, all in a matter of seconds.

Hajime had spent the last two minutes just _staring_ at the boy to the point that he’d forgotten that he’d been asked a question.

“Did you not hear me?” the boy repeated, irritation bleeding into his voice.

Hajime snapped out of his stupor, blinking. “Uh, what?”

“I said– Hold on, you... you’re a human!?”

“...Yeah? What’s wrong with that?” he asked, now perturbed. Why would he be asking something like that? Surely that was normal? The expected answer?

The boy, however, looked shocked. He glanced quickly from side to side, then turned to face Hajime. “I do not know how you arrived here, but you must leave now, before the palace officially opens.”

“What? Why?” Okay, this guy was worrying him now. Why did he have to leave? What palace? There was nothing of the sort here! But what bothered Hajime the most was that this guy didn’t talk as though he himself was human - despite looking so.

“There is no time to explain in detail - you must leave quickly.” The boy turned and pointed to the far distance ahead of them, where the tunnel entrance lay. “Go past the stands and over the hill, cross the bridge, and leave. What are you waiting for?”

“But- you- my parents are still here though!” Hajime managed to get out among the many warring questions and worries in his head.

The boy however, simply glared at him and said, “Then find them and leave, quickly!”

Hajime wasn't finished, though. “Wait–”

But the other boy’s patience seemed to have reached its limit. He grabbed Hajime by the shirt and pushed him down the hill, hissing, “Go, now!” His voice was somehow both serious and desperate - Hajime staggered for a moment before regaining his footing and running down the hill and into the field of houses. He cast one last glance back at the boy, who stared at him and then turned away.

\---

The sky had darkened completely, but all the lights from the area here illuminated everything clearly. That didn’t make the whole thing any less creepy.

Now that he was smack-dab in the middle of them, Hajime noticed a lot more than before from afar. Not only were all the lanterns put up and lit, but banners and flags have been hung everywhere, in vivid colors of oranges and reds.

It was almost festive, if it wasn’t also eerie and somewhat terrifying.

He had no idea what this was, who that strange boy had been, or what was going on, but what he knew was that he needed to find his parents before he could move on to other matters.

Hajime dashed through path after path, moving at a breakneck speed, his head spinning as he searched for his parents. “Mom!? Dad!?”

Eventually he wasn’t even paying attention to which way he was going - he was just running around haphazardly hoping he’d see them somewhere. Maybe they’d gone to wait by the car after all? But they had said that they wouldn’t go there without him…

Regardless, when running around the paths failed, Hajime began looking inside each small house– stand, that guy had called it a stand - in the hopes that they were inside and hadn’t heard him.

It was a lot harder than it sounded. And weirder too.

For one thing, the lights inside the houses were all lit, and on the counters for several of them were plates or food and drink, books and art laid out, and everything looked fucking clean and homey - as though there were people living in them.

It was official now. Hajime was starting to feel genuinely scared at all this.

Still, he ran between each stand, ducking his head in and calling out, “Mom? Dad?” as loudly as he could.

What could have happened to them? Has something taken them? But what? It wasn’t like things could get any crazier anyhow–

He should not have said that.

Just when it seemed things couldn’t get any weirder, somehow they did.

He’d been running and looking about, when he noticed some movement out of the corner of his eye. “Mom?”

No response. Maybe she just hadn't heard him.

Hajime followed the shadow around several corners and abruptly runs into something with no time to slow down. He shut his eyes, bracing himself for the inevitable impact, but, strangely, he didn’t feel anything. Bewildered, he cracked an eye open. Several dark shapes danced before him, and he opened both eyes fully to see something that stunned him.

There was a group of shadowy figures in front of him, wearing dark cloaks. They paid absolutely no attention to Hajime as they walked around, looking at the various counters, which also housed various plates of food and drinks.

“Uh…” Hajime had absolutely no idea who these guys were, but they seemed to know their way around here. Maybe they could help...? “Uhm, excuse me, but I’m... kind of lost, and I was wondering if any of you could help–”

One of the figures turned and walked towards Hajime as though they hadn’t noticed him, and Hajime managed to get a clear look at their face, which was completely black - there were no discernible facial features whatsoever, like a hole had been cut out where the person’s face was supposed to be.

What.

The shock at seeing nothing rooted him in place enough that he couldn’t register that the figure was moving towards him. Just as he snapped back to attention, the person walked right through him. Not around him, but straight-up through him, as though he was a ghost or something. Hajime’s eyes widened. What???

But he wasn’t a ghost - he was human. He was 100% absolutely sure on that, so what–

 _Unless they’re the ghosts._ That would explain why they don’t have faces.

And that thought was all it took - panicking, Hajime backed away. His feet faltered, almost making him trip as he sprinted in the opposite direction from the ghostly figures. He couldn’t help the fearful shout that escaped him. “Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!”

The ghosts stared after him, confused.

\---

Hajime was still reeling from what had just happened barely a minute ago. His thoughts were incoherent, strewn along all over the place.

_There are ghosts here? Hope’s Peak is haunted? Is this a ghost town? What’s going on!? Where the hell are Mom and Dad?!_

He was running blindly - to where, he didn’t know, but he did know that he wanted to get away from whatever the hell had just happened no matter what.

Huh? Wait, that–

By chance, Hajime caught a glimpse of a faintly familiar counter, skidding to a stop to get a better look.

Upon closer inspection, he saw that it was the same counter he’d last seen his parents at - it was all lit up, and there was a spread of food laid out now, like everywhere else, but the cupboards and books there were unmistakably the same. Thank God!

Immediately Hajime rushed in there, his sole thought being to find his parents and get the hell out of here. “Mom? Dad? Are you here?”

There was no response. No sound of acknowledgement to his questions.

He walked inside, looking around. There was a small space inside the stand behind the counter of food and the kitchen that looked like a living room - it had a couch and a small table. But there was no sign of his parents.

Hajime was about to call it a day and leave - if his parents weren’t here then they were probably already gone, maybe waiting by the car or something, when something furry brushed past his foot, startling him. Hajime leapt back, a shiver running up his spine, and looked down to see what had startled him.

There, standing by his feet, was a fucking ferret.

It was so mundane and simple among the many other surreal things that have been happening that Hajime can’t hold back the laugh that bubbled out of him at the sight. He leaned onto his side, laughing at the sheer ridiculous situation that he was in.

That laugh died in his throat as soon as his eyes panned across the room and landed on a heap of what was unmistakably his dad's clothes.

_Oh, shit._

Hajime looked from the heap of clothes to the ferret next to his feet, then looked at the clothes again before the realization hit him like a brick.

“Dad?” His voice was barely above a whisper from shock.

The ferret made no indication that it recognized or understood him.

Of course, if he’s a fucking ferret he won’t understand you dumbass!

But there was no other explanation for the heap of clothes lying there. They weren’t torn up - it was like his dad had melted away from inside into something smaller.

Like a ferret.

As if accompanying that realization, Hajime heard a small flapping noise - like something being smacked on the ground. What now?

Slowly, Hajime stepped closer to the noise to find another heap of clothes, this time his mother’s, but without her anywhere in sight either. He looked down and saw an indigo-colored fish flopping around inside the bundle of clothes.

Oh, he _cannot_ be having this right now.

“Mom?” Why was he even saying something like that? It wasn’t like she’d understand him either!

Hajime’s mind was reeling from all this - why was this happening? How did something like this happen? This was absolutely crazy, magic wasn’t real! He must’ve been hallucinating or something! Hajime closed his eyes and pinched himself as hard and painfully as he could, but when he'd opened his eyes nothing had changed. _What the hell..._

Had his parents done something wrong? Something that warranted them turning into fucking animals for some reason? But everything here was untouched except the food, what–

The food.

Several plates and teacups were scattered on the table, some in pieces on the ground. From what he could see, the plates held various assortments of meat and chicken, and the teacups had held… well, tea, obviously. Someone had eaten most of the food on the plates.

Looking to what he now knew to be his parents on the ground, it was a simple matter of connecting the dots. And when Hajime did, he just got more confused.

_The food… turned them into animals? Because they ate it?_

He thought of how the yearbook had done some kind of weird thing to his arm, like it was cursing him or something, and suddenly it didn’t seem too far that it was the same with the food, like a movie - placed out as some kind of trap to curse those who ate it.

At that precise moment, as if to celebrate his discovery of all this, the lights behind him outside of the stand suddenly intensified, bright yellow light shining everywhere. Hajime wasn’t even facing it and yet he squinted at the intensity before it died down slightly to a more manageable degree.

_What’s going on now?!_

Sticking his head out of the stand, Hajime’s jaw fell open in astonishment.

It was the building of Hope’s Peak Academy. It was lit up and covered in lanterns and banners all over, its color completely changed to red and white rather than silver and blue - it looked like a gigantically tall shrine, with a tiled roof out of nowhere. The crest that bore the Hope’s Peak insignia was gone - a black-and-white circle with a red slash across it had replaced it. It looked nothing like the abandoned and modern building Hajime had seen a short while ago. It looked full of life. It was grand, and majestic, just like a palace.

A palace.

The guy from earlier had mentioned it, telling Hajime that he had to leave before the palace opened. Hajime didn’t know why but from the look on that guy’s face - the minute fear and desperation - it couldn’t be anything remotely good.

Well, too late to think on those words now.

But this was on a whole other level. Somehow the entire building had been revamped to... its complete opposite this quickly. From modern to traditional, from abandoned to full of life, from cold to warm. No matter how much time there was, there was absolutely no way to do something like that in the space of one night - no, more like a few minutes. Something was clearly up with all this.

We need to get out of here, now.

Ducking back in, Hajime reached for the ferret that was apparently his dad, only for his hand to slip right through. His eyes widened. He reached for the fish - his mother. No dice. He held up his hand and gasped.

His hand– his hand was fucking transparent!! It was only partly there, and he could see through it, as though it was fading! He waved his hand around wildly in front of his face, but it didn’t change, apart from getting really blurry for a second–

Was he… turning into a ghost too?

Hajime made another frantic motion to grab the ferret, but his hand passed through it yet again to no avail.

Hajime stumbled back, gasping, his breaths growing louder as he began to hyperventilate. No, nonononono, this couldn’t be happening, on top of everything else, what was happening, why was this happening–

He tore out of the stand, leaving his parents behind in his panic, as he screamed at the top of his lungs. “Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”

\---

Hajime had no idea where he was going - he was just sprinting blindly wherever with no objective or destination in mind.

He saw some more of the ghostly figures as he went, and even ran through one of them without paying attention, but didn't look back. All he knew was that he had to get away from all this. He needed space to breathe, to think, to pull himself together–

Soon enough, Hajime was sitting under the small hill beyond the town, knees tucked in and arms wrapped around himself as Hajime tried to calm down. He’d left the Academy and stands around it and ran to the entrance tunnel where he and his parents had come in through, but he couldn't reach it. The bridge connecting the clearing to the tunnel was already submerged underwater - it was like the river had just exponentially risen over time or something. There was no way to cross unless he had a boat or something, which he did not. So now he had no idea what to do.

He spent what felt like several minutes before Hajime looked up from his knees. He holds his hand out in front of him only to see that the transparency has spread along the length of his forearm. He muffled the incoming gasp with his other hand. This wasn’t good - at the rate it was spreading, he’d become a ghost stuck here in a matter of minutes! And he didn’t even know what would happen to his parents. Would they be stuck that way forever? Would they eventually turn back? What if they did but he was gone forever? What would he do then?

What should he do now?

Ghosts were roaming around, the entire place had somehow been completely been transformed and inhabited, his parents have turned into fucking animals, and–

Hajime’s thoughts cut off as he heard a rustling noise above to his left only to have someone suddenly land next to him. He fought back a yell to see that it was the boy from earlier - the one who’d told him to leave.

The boy turned and looked at him. “You’re still here.”

Hajime rolled his eyes sarcastically. Way to go, Captain Obvious. “Yeah, I am. Because for one, the bridge is underwater, and two, I _don’t know what’s happening to me–_ ” Hajime held up his translucent hands to demonstrate his point. His other hand has already begun fading as well in the short while, starting with his fingers.

The boy just looked at his hands contemplatively before simply saying, “I see. Wait here then. I will return shortly.” And then leaping back over the small hill and crossing the clearing like he was fucking Batman or something.

Hajime had no idea what the boy was planning, but it wasn’t not like he had any other choice. Reluctantly, he waited, sitting quietly with his legs crossed.

At some point, a large boat materialized out of nowhere, covered in lanterns like everything else here, and docked to the side of the clearing. Carefully, Hajime crawled a few steps and leaned over, squinting his eyes as he tried to get a better look at the boat. He couldn't see anyone on it–

Oh. Never mind. Several of what were probably invisible ghosts walked off the boat and into the town - the only way Hajime could even see them was by the conical hats they wore on what was probably their heads, from which a piece of paper with a strange symbol hung on, in front of their... faces? God knows how they can see and navigate with those things in their eyes. They’ve also got jewelry on them - an assortment of gold necklaces hung around their necks. Hajime blinked at the sight. Where did ghosts even get gold?

He heard the rustling noise from before and looked up, only to duck away as the boy landed right where he’d been leaning over seconds ago.

The boy turned to him and held out an open hand. Laying on it were several grapes - or berries? Hajime couldn’t really see clearly in this darkness.

“Eat.” The command took him by surprise. Hajime narrowed his eyes. This guy wanted him to eat this stuff? How did he know it wouldn’t do anything strange to him, such as turning him into an animal like what had happened with his parents?

As though he could see Hajime’s mistrust, which he probably could, the boy shook his head. “There is nothing harmful within these. They are simply berries. You must eat them to cure yourself of your ailment.” He explained with a glance at Hajime’s fading arms.

Hajime paused. “So, these will… help with whatever’s happening to me right now?”

The boy nodded.

Hajime had no way of knowing whether the food was safe or not. He only has this mysterious boy’s word for it, and that wasn’t a very strong argument in and of itself. But still, this boy had told him to leave and had tried to help him, so maybe, just maybe, he was trustworthy.

And again, it wasn’t like Hajime had any other options anyhow.

Somewhat reluctantly, Hajime took the berries from the boy’s outstretched hand and ate them. They didn’t actually taste bad - rather, they tasted just like normal berries. He savored the taste for a few seconds before swallowing.

When he was done, he looked at his hands to see that slowly, they’ve started gaining back their form. He could almost cry tears of joy, but right now, he had got bigger fish to fry. Not literally though.

He turned to look at the boy, who was staring at him with an odd expression. “Uh… thank you, you really saved me there…”

The boy nodded. “You were fading. Should you spend too much time here after the sun has sunk beyond the horizon, your physical form begins to dissipate into that of a spirit, trapped forever in torment. These berries will allow you to hold on to your form for the time being. Three days of spirit food, and your physical body will completely integrate with this place to the point that the other spirits will not be able to detect you.”

“Spirits?” Hajime stared at the boy, wide-eyed. “You mean that those strange ghosts roaming around everywhere are _spirits?_ ”

“Yes.” The boy shook his head, making a ‘tch’ sound. “Ghosts? Is that how you humans refer to us? How unorthodox.”

“Hey, we- wait, are you a spirit too?” Why was he even asking something like that? Crap, It was pretty obvious, dammit!

The boy gave him a look like ‘seriously?’. Hajime almost felt offended at the notion that the boy was assuming him to be an idiot or something.

“Okay, okay, never mind, um…” What should he say now? Questions ran through his mind, one after the other - Who are you? Where is this? What’s going on? Why did the building suddenly change like that? But what came out of Hajime’s mouth was–

“Why are you helping me?”

“...” The boy looked almost affronted at the question, before his expression gave way to bafflement. Hajime himself was confused. _He doesn’t even know?!_

The boy coughed awkwardly into his fist. “W-well, I helped you… Regardless, I _chose_ to help you. There is no taking that back.” He looked flustered. “But you must leave. Wait the night out, and then go through the tunnel. Do you understand me?”

Hajime blinked, taking the information in. But, hold on… “Wait a minute! What about my parents?”

“What about them?”

“They- they’ve turned into animals! And I don’t know how to turn them back! What do I do?”

The boy stared at Hajime for a long moment, then shook his head. “Humans… Really, how tactless. They must have eaten the spirit food.”

“Hey, they didn’t know about any of this…” muttered Hajime, though he already knew it was a losing argument. Eating food that was just randomly left out like that, and wasn’t even for them, well, probably hadn’t been the best idea, or a good idea at all.

The boy shook his head. “Then this will not be as simple. If your parents have already been transmuted into animals, this will take longer than expected. Very well, follow me, and do be careful.” With that, he set off, crossing the clearing with Hajime in tow.

They ducked around the stands, avoiding the spirits as much as they could, who just seemed to be milling around. Hajime didn’t really know why they had to be sneaky or whatever - none of the spirits had given a damn when he’d been running all over the place screaming. But if that's what this guy wanted to go with, well then, fine.

They crossed the stand where Hajime had found his parents, but his parents - the animals - were nowhere to be found. Someone or something had taken them. Not even their clothes remained.

Soon enough, the two of them found themselves before the large bridge heading to the building of Hope’s Peak Academy, which has somehow been transformed into some kind of shrine. Hajime still had no idea how that was done.

Loads of spirits walked on the bridge, cloaked and robed and some of them even looking like animals; Hajime saw a fox ambling across, tail swishing above its head, an air of superiority and snobbery exuding from it.

“Here, grasp my hand.” he turned to the boy, who was standing next to him. The boy’s hand was outstretched to him, rather reluctantly going by the expression on his face. After a moment of hesitation, Hajime nervously took his hand, waiting for something to happen once he did - but surprisingly, nothing happened. _Freaking out over nothing like that... Seriously, I need to get a grip._

“Now, take a deep breath and hold it - the entire time we cross the bridge, you must make sure to keep your breath, and not to let go of my hand. If you do that, we can cross undetected by the other spirits.” How the hell does that work? The boy intertwined his hand around Hajime’s as he said that.

Nodding, Hajime took a big gulp of air and held it, making his cheeks puff out as though he was a chipmunk. The boy chuckled at the sight. With that, they began to walk across the bridge.

Hajime had no idea how, but that boy was right - no one spares them a second glance, or points at him, or even acknowledges his existence. It’s like he’s completely invisible, some kind of spirit magic.

This was… actually kind of cool.

They managed to cross the bridge completely undetected, and they were almost at the very end - _come on come on we’re so close come **on**_ \-- When a fucking frog popped up in front of them out of nowhere, yelling “Master Hebi!”

Frogs can _talk?_

Hajime gasped, caught off guard by surprise, releasing the breath he’d been holding - _oh shit oh shit oh shit_ \- and almost immediately, the frog’s eyes slanted across to look at him for a brief moment, before widening as the frog pointed at him, yelling out “A human! There’s a hu–”

The frog was cut off as the boy quickly made a motion at it towards the air, and a gust of wind came in and blew it high into the air. Hajime didn’t have any time to react to any of what just happened, because the boy tightened his grip on Hajime’s hand and they were suddenly sprinting past all of the spirits, who were looking around in confusion after the frog’s outburst.

They ran until they were hidden behind several thick bushes, pressed up against the building. Hajime could hear voices speaking inside, but he couldn't tell what they were saying.

The boy was looking at the bridge, watching as the spirits ran around, beginning to fall into chaos and calling out.

“Master Hebi! Master Hebi!”

“I think there was a human here! There’s a scent!”

“Where is Master Hebi?”

The boy turned to Hajime and put two fingers to his forehead, talking while he did so. “At the east side of this building, you will find some stairs descending with a steel door at the very end. Through it is the boiler room.” As he spoke, a mental image of what he was describing appeared in Hajime’s head - the building, the stairs and the door. “A woman named Yuki is there. You must go there and ask her for a job. It is the only way to avoid being caged or tormented here. No matter what she says, just keep asking for a job. Do not relent. If you have a job here, _she_ can’t lay a finger on you.”

Hajime got the feeling that the Yuki woman and the _she_ were two totally different people. And he didn’t like the way the emphasis was placed on the she. “Who are you talking about?”

“...You will find out soon enough. She is a formidable sorcerer who wields incredible power and rules this entire domain of the spirit realm. Not much goes by here that she is not aware of. It would not be wise at all to let her catch you compromised - but if you have a job here, you can avoid that fate until you can find a way to save your parents. Do you understand?”

Hajime was still kind of confused - hell, he was _very_ confused - and he wanted to ask more, but he knew that this wasn’t the time for that. Maybe he could find out more later, though. From the looks of it this wouldn’t be the last time he saw the boy. At least, for now. But he has a basic idea on what to do right now. He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Good.” The boy nodded back, satisfied. “Now go. I will deal with this ruckus in the meantime.” With those words, the boy stood up and walked out to the chaotic mess of spirits, who turned to him excitedly, calling “Master Hebi!”

“Yes, I heard your calls. What is this ruckus? Really...”

Hajime ducked low as he moved behind the bushes in the direction that the boy – Hebi, apparently, had shown him. _His name is Hebi? Like, snake? Okay…_

Soon enough, Hajime found the stairs that Hebi (that name’s gonna take some getting used to) had spoken of. They were wooden, and… actually way longer than they had seemed in that mental image.

Hajime walked down the stairs, relaxing slightly as he did so. At least there was nothing that could go wrong with some simple stairs–

He hadn’t expected one of the wooden steps to be broken, though.

His foot came down on it and in a split second broke through it - before Hajime knew what was going on, he was falling and rolling down the stairs, hurtling towards the door as he rolled on his back and arms and _holy shit the door is right there it’s made of steel I’m going to crash into it and d i e–––_

He didn’t die. But his face and body stung and hurt from the whole ordeal. Hajime turned and glared incredulously at the stairs. _Are you kidding me?? Even the perfectly normal stairs had to do something?!_

He really couldn’t get a moment of peace here.

Hajime would’ve continued on his mental tangent of insults at the stairs, but his focus came back to the steel door in front of him. It looked simple. There was a big wheel-looking contraption right in the center of it. It looked like he had to turn it to open the door. It looks simple and harmless… Which means it’s probably gonna be heavy and tough. Trouble, like always.

Hajime gripped both sides of the wheel with both hands, channeled all his strength, and _twisted–_

Only for the wheel to give way surprisingly easily, the door opening with a creak. Hajime stared at it exasperatedly. Did everything here have to just do the exact opposite of what he thought or expected to mess with him?!? Sigh...

Well, whatever. Hajime pulled the door open and stepped through.


	2. Starting at the Bathhouse

The sight that met him past the door was not one he’d expected. 

Hajime had expected something orderly, like an office with someone sitting at a front desk. After all, he was supposed to ask for a job (and hopefully get one) here.

Instead, he found something completely different.

The room was traditional - there was a huge fireplace to the right and shelves with drawers lining all along the walls with small tables underneath them. Everything was wooden all over - the walls, the floor, the shelves and tables too.

A young woman with long orange hair tied up in a high ponytail, wearing a light blue dress with a white apron, ran around sweeping up things on the ground with a broom while simultaneously squeezing a bellow into the fireplace, which was blazing. The woman was yelling as she worked - “Come on now, hurry! We need a herbal medicine concoction quickly, dear!” at another woman.

The other woman looked totally different. She was wearing a black apron dress and purple gloves and had short gray hair that was curled upwards at the ends. She was also wearing some kind of purple mask on her mouth. The gray-haired woman was looking around frantically with a fistful of herbs in one hand, asking, “W-Where’s my grinder? Yuki, I need my grinder to mix these!”

So the orange-haired woman was Yuki. Good to know.

Hajime watched the spectacle silently from the door. He wasn’t even surprised at this point.

After a moment where Hajime was seriously debating whether to make his presence known to the two of them yet or not, the women suddenly noticed him standing there and froze for a moment, before the orange-haired one said, “Hey! What’s this? We have a visitor! Come in, come in!” and ushered him inside.

“Wait, isn’t he… a human?” asked the gray-haired woman, eyeing him carefully.

“I can tell!” chirped Yuki cheerfully. “But I can also tell that he’s totally harmless. What’s he gonna do, huh?” She punctuated the last sentence with a look at Hajime that just _dared_ him to try anything. Hajime almost wanted to do something just to prove it to her, but he was only here for one thing, and he was going to do just that.

“You’re Yuki, right?” She nodded, still smiling. “Um, I’d like to work here! Please give me a job!”

“Huh?!” Both women looked totally shocked. They clearly hadn’t expected that of all things, especially from a human like Hajime. 

“You- a human like you wants to work here? At the bathhouse?” Bathouse? This place was a bathhouse? Hajime had no idea… But he shouldn’t let them see that. He had to make it look like he knew what he was doing.

“Yes, I do! Please give me a job here!” He repeated.

“Hmmm… Nope, sorry.” said Yuki.

“Wha-? Why?” Hajime hadn’t expected this response right off the bat.

“Because,” Yuki held up a finger. “For one, I don’t need any help here. I’m enough by myself. Mura’s an exception, because she has a very special role here!”

The other woman, Mura, looked happy at those words. “Special… I’m special? Thanks…”

“But…” _Do not relent._ Hebi had told him not to relent, that no matter what, it was imperative Hajime get a job. He’d likely foreseen that Hajime wouldn’t be given a job right away. So he had to keep pushing until Yuki found something for him. “No. I want to work here! Please give me a job!” 

“I already said _no,_ little orange. We don’t need anything more here in the boiler room!"

“I need to work here! I need a job! Please give me one!”

“My, you’re a rotten little orange, aren’t you? What part of ‘no’ don’t you get?” Yuki began to look irritated. “How long are you planning to do this?”

“I won’t leave before you give me a job! I’ll pester you until I get one here!” Hajime felt emboldened - he meant every last word. She wouldn’t be getting rid of him _that_ easily.

“Just go away, really! You rotten orange!” Oh, she was definitely pissed now. It was intimidating as hell - a counter to her sweet demeanor from earlier. Mura stood in the corner, watching the argument with fearful eyes. 

“No! Not until you give me a job!” Hajime planted his feet on the floor and met Yuki’s gaze evenly.

This went on for several more minutes until–

“AAAAGH! Fine!” yelled Yuki, throwing up her hands in the air.

 _Yes!_ “So you’ll give me a job?” asked Hajime, wanting to be sure.

To his astonishment, Yuki went from angry to cheerful in a matter of seconds, smiling at him. This left Hajime confused, understandably - he’d just had a heated ten-minute argument with her, why was she so happy?

“You’ve proven yourself to be quite determined and resilient!” Yuki had been _testing_ him!? Was she fucking serious?! “Truly, you’re a good orange here!” What was with her and calling him an orange? Really...

Yuki held up a finger. “But, you see, you can’t start working here unless you sign a contract with the boss here! So you’ll have to go talk to her and hopefully get a job! Contracts are how things are done here in this part of the spirit world - so it’s imperative you get that, you hear?” 

Oh, so he needed to talk to the boss and convince her to give him a job? That sounded simple enough...

That thought was abruptly cut off as Mura murmured from the side, “But… are you sure, Yuki? You know how she… how _Enoshima_ is…”

That name - Enoshima - clearly held power behind it, from the way Mura said it. _She must be the boss… which means she’s also probably the ‘she’ that Hebi had mentioned earlier._

At that moment, a wooden door in the back opened, sliding to the side, and a red-haired girl walked in carrying a basket full of herbs and other items. “Hey, Yuki, Mura, I brought more herbs for you from the garden...”

She looked up only to freeze at the sight before her, staring at Hajime for a second before dropping the basket (which Mura dove over to grab in the nick of time) and pointing at Hajime, crying out, “A human! You’re the one that’s stirring trouble and got everyone running around upstairs! Yuki, Mura, what are you doing with him?!” 

“Never mind that, Izumi, dear.” Yuki brushed her question off. “I’ve got a favor to ask of you. Would you mind taking this boy here up to Junko? He wants a job here.”

“ _What?_ T-take him up… to her? No way, why should I?! He’s clearly got a death wish!” The girl, Izumi, exclaimed, shock and disbelief all over her face.

“Junko?” murmured Hajime. Mura noticed his query and answered him as Yuki and Izumi bickered in the background.

“She’s the boss here. Junko Enoshima… an incredibly powerful witch who rules the bathhouse and the entire surrounding area. You’ll need to convince her to make a contract with her to work here. That’s… if she even gives you the chance to speak.” Oh boy. That didn’t sound comforting at all. “Most people here call her Lady Enoshima or just Enoshima… Yuki’s one of the few who has no fear by referring to her with her first name…” Mura trailed off as Yuki turned to her excitedly, while Izumi groaned, smacking a hand to her face and muttering, “How did I get caught in this…”

“Well, good news, little orange!” Yuki smiled. “Izumi here will get you to Junko! And Mura, you’ll have to make some of those energy-revitalizing mixtures of yours as payment to Izumi for this!” 

“And some for Yadoriki too!” added Izumi.

Mura blinked. “Ah… Alright! A-anything to help a friend, after all!” With that, she went off to one of the wooden tables and began mixing herbs and medicines together.

“Well? What are you waiting for?” Hajime snapped back to see Izumi glaring at him, hands at her hips, annoyed. She had short red hair, green eyes and freckles all over her cheeks, with a serious expression on her face. Hajime blinked. _Wait..._

Izumi sighed. “What are you just standing there for? Come on.” She grabbed Hajime by the arm and pulled him behind her out the door.

Yuki and Mura watched as they left. Mura turned to Yuki. “Are you sure he’ll be able to get a contract?”

Yuki shrugged. “Truth be told, I have no idea. But he’s a good orange, and he’s proven himself to be able to persevere. But hey, I don’t know everything. We’ll see what happens to him later. Now, back to work! Chop chop!” And with that, the two returned back to their duties.

\---

Izumi opened a wooden door to reveal a wooden hallway with doors along the sides and patterned screens along the walls. It didn’t look like the interior of the Hope’s Peak Academy building Hajime had walked through less than a few hours ago.

 _So it_ **_is_ ** _a bathhouse… and a formal looking one at that. This must have taken some crazy spirit magic or power to pull off..._

They stepped carefully along the halls, avoiding and sneaking around the other spirits, moving in directions with Izumi at the lead navigating. As they walked, Hajime realized that the bathhouse was still similar to Hope’s Peak Academy - the windows are at the same places, the directions and placements of the hallways are the same and most of the objects, like lockers and desks and chairs are there as well - just being used for different purposes.

“You should be grateful to Yuki,” Izumi told him as they walked. “I don’t know why she’d do something like this, but regardless, she’s always been quirky that way. You better thank her later.”

Hajime nodded. “I know.”

They passed by a bulletin board which, instead of having old Hope’s Peak events on it, instead had schedules and job directions.

The whole time, as the two of them walked, something had been eating at Hajime about the girl walking in front of him - he can’t put his finger on it, but--

“We’re here.” said Izumi, snapping Hajime out of his thoughts. She opened a door to reveal a small room with a lever - an old-fashioned elevator. “Enoshima is at the very top of the building, in the penthouse. Pull this lever to the very end to set the elevator to go there. Got that?”

Hajime nodded, and Izumi turned to leave, when he suddenly said, “Wait–”

She turned back to look at him. “What is it?”

“Uh…” Honestly, Hajime had no idea why he’d called out like that - all he knew was that there was something… something that he wasn’t fully sure how to articulate. He opened his mouth to try to explain, only to say - “Have I seen you somewhere before?”

Cue awkward silence. Well, incredulous on Izumi’s end.

 _What the hell am I saying!?!_ Hajime wanted to slap himself for that - of all the damn things to say! And by the looks of it, Izumi wasn’t too pleased either. Her face flushed with displeasure and she quietly hissed, “What is _that_ supposed to mean?! Are you trying to flirt or something?! At a time like this!? How ridiculous! Of course you’ve never seen me before, you’re a human! And I haven’t seen _you_ before, for that matter!” With that, she flung the door shut, her silhouette receding as she left.

Hajime stood motionless in the elevator for a moment silently, wondering how in the fuck he managed to botch something like that _this_ badly, before slapping himself across the face - and slamming his forehead on the elevator wall a few times for good measure, muttering, “Dammit! Dammit! Stupid!” before straightening up.

He should _really_ get moving before some spirit accidentally found him and fucked this all up. He pulled the lever as far as it could go, and the elevator swayed slightly as it moved upwards.

\---

Eventually, the elevator came to a stop, and the door opened. Hajime walked out, and the elevator left, probably called by someone else.

The room he was in was absolutely elegant - there was no other way to describe it. The walls were marble white and shiny with gold lining across, and a black, white and red patterned carpet was on the floor. A gold chandelier, with gems and lights strung across in a way to provide a wide range of light, as large as possible, hung from the ceiling. 

There was a huge pair of double doors of deep red velvet, with brass handles, more than twice his height. Hajime eyed the doors for a moment, before reaching out and grabbing it when–

“Huh? You’re not even gonna knock? That’s poor manners, y’know.”

Hajime leapt back as though he'd been electrified. Looking around frantically, he saw that there was no one there - it was just him and him alone. But he’d definitely heard something! A monotone voice… inviting him in? Was he going crazy? 

Before he could do anything else, though, the monotone voice spoke again, this time sounding excited. 

“Weeeeeeellllll, don’t just stand there, come on in!”

Hajime paused at that and narrowed his eyes. He had to be careful with this. The voice had offered for him to enter, but… would something happen if he just opened the door like that? Or was it a trap?

“Uuuuuuuuuggghhhh, you’re really letting me down here with your hesitation! Fine, I’ll just do it myself.”

The voice sounded aggravated this time, and Hajime’s only thought was _that’s not good_ before something invisible suddenly grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him into the air, dragging him forwards through multiple red doors that opened automatically for him as he hurtled through. The invisible presence let go of him as soon as he passed the last door, and before he knew it Hajime found himself sliding across face-first on the floor for a good few meters before coming to a stop.

For a moment Hajime just lay there, partially dazed, and then he sat up and looked around only to see a bear.

A bear. Just… there _. Is this… Enoshima?_

The bear had a line going down its middle, and was black on one side and white on the other. On the white side was a beady eye and a normal-looking bear face, and on the black side was a glowing red eye in the shape of a slash - _like the one on the outside of the building_ \- and half its mouth formed into a curved, sharp-toothed smile.

It was… certainly unsettling.

“Uh…” How should he start? Should he just ask for a job right off the bat?

“Over heeere!” 

Hajime stood up and pivoted to his right to see a woman lounging on a chair - heck, it looked more like a throne - behind a desk covered in boxes and jewels, with an elaborate lamp on the side. 

The woman herself looked like a high schooler, in a way. Like a fancy senior. She had strawberry pink blonde hair styled into two huge pigtails with bear clips, and light blue eyes. She was wearing some weird fusion of a shirt and a robe that was colored black and red, with a white bow tie and a necklace set with a deep red jewel. _A ruby?_

Hajime realized the moment he lay eyes on her that this was definitely Junko Enoshima.

Enoshima grinned at him. It was a wicked, cruel grin - Hajime found that he didn’t like it one bit.

“Well, _hello_ there.” She purred. “It’s been a long while since any humans have come here - decades, in fact. You’ve actually managed to make it all the way up here too, wow! Congratulations!” Hajime did not feel congratulated or reassured one bit. “And as for your companions, your parents,” Hajime stiffened. “Well, they got their just desserts, I’d say! I mean, really, gobbling up _all_ the food that was left out exclusively for the visiting spirits and our guests like the greedy, dirty, mud-ridden animals they were… They were truly filthy beasts, the way they ate everything up like that! Well! Serves them right!”

Her smile grew somehow impossibly wider. “Ah, the desperation, the confusion, the… _despair_ the feel… I love it! Something fresh for once. Hahahahaha!”

Hajime clenched his fist. He opened his mouth to rebuke her, when she cut him off and continued talking.

“Now, like I said before, it’s _really_ impressive how you’ve managed to make it all the way here, with all the commotion about a human going on downstairs. But really, there’s no way you knew your way around the bathhouse, somehow successfully avoided all the spirits inside, _and_ managed to make your way up here. Soooooo, c’mon, fess up! Who helped you, hmm?” 

Clearly, if she found out who had, she’d punish them. And probably horribly too. Hajime already knew not to say any names - anyone he even mildly implicated would be in trouble. Instead, he just plowed forward with the reason he was here, trying to change the subject.

“Please give me a job here!”

Enoshima’s smile vanished, and she stared at him, dumbfounded. “ _Huh?_ ”

“I want to work here.” reiterated Hajime. “Please let me work here!”

“...Huh.” Enoshima murmured very quietly. She stood up from her chair and walked around before sitting on her desk instead. She wore knee-length, black high-heeled boots. _That just adds to her looking like a witch._

“You,” she said, very slowly. “Want. To work. Here. Really?”

Hajime nodded. “Yes. Please give me a job here!”

She narrowed her eyes. “And why should I, hm? There are enough spirits working here. I don’t need you. Give me _one_ good reason why I should even consider that.” 

“Uh…” Hajime faltered, searching for something. Enoshima _was_ right - she didn’t necessarily need him. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t have a use for him. The thought of being used irritated him beyond anything else, but Hajime forced himself to go through with it.

“Y-yeah, you’re right, but still, uh, it doesn’t hurt to have one more worker!”

Enoshima paused, before she burst out laughing. “Clearly, you aren’t on your own in this. Someone told you, didn’t they? About how if you get a job here, the other spirits can’t lay a finger on you. How interesting and truly unexpected... I never predicted something like this! Ah, how… _despairful_ it must be, especially for you, to have to come all the way here and beg! When I get my hands on whoever it was that helped you...” She clenched a fist, looking down with a cruel grin. Her eyes gleamed with something glowing and menacing, something… sinister. Like a pit of red, inviting Hajime in to be swallowed and consumed. It scared him.

Hajime gripped his left arm with his right, feeling perturbed. If he’d considered Enoshima frightening before, then now she was absolutely downright terrifying, especially with the power she held over him. The fact that he had to beg her for a job… Enoshima was right, he didn’t like the fact that he had to do that one bit. It seemed hopeless. It _was_ hopeless. What would make her agree? _Could_ he even do this at all? Why–

_Hajime!_

The faces of his parents flashed in his mind’s eye, and Hajime shook his head rigorously, snapping himself out of his spiraling daze. _No! Don’t fall apart now! You_ **_have_ ** _to get a job here! For mom and dad! Don’t let her trip you up!_

“I’d like a job here! I want to work here! Please!” Hajime got down on his knees and bowed, knowing he looked beyond pathetic like this - Enoshima had already told him that. But he _had_ to get a job here, and if begging on his knees was how, then he’d do it.

“Well, even if the thought of your parents spurs you on, just know that I have complete power over them. There’s no turning them back from animals without my express instruction. No one else here can help you in that regard. So whoever helped you get here… they won’t be able to help you with that.” Enoshima held up a blue gem, inspecting it as she spoke.

Her words made Hajime falter for a moment - no way to turn his parents back without her say so? _Crap… but still! This is the best shot I have, with me being stuck here in the spirit world anyway!_

“That doesn’t matter! I still want a job here! Please!” Hajime sat up, clenching his hands on top of his knees.

“Hmph! You’re clearly useless and weak. This is a place where spirits come to replenish and clean themselves, especially from the taint of dirty and poisonous humans like _you._ You have no proper manners, and you can’t even knock properly. And you’re a needy, whiny, wretched worm from the looks of it. You can’t do anything. You wouldn’t last a day at work here, contract or no contract.” Enoshima looked down at him. “Do you think someone pathetic and snivelling like _you_ can handle the workload here? I’ll tell you now, no one here’s going to go easy on you. You don’t get any beginner tips. In fact, it’ll be _especially_ harder and more taxing for you. Still, you’ll try?”

What else could he do? Hajime nodded, lips pursed for whatever rebuttal came next.

But Enoshima just shrugged nonchalantly. “Fine, then. Your funeral.” _Wait, she… she agreed that easily?_ The witch casually waved a hand, manicured with blood-red nail polish, in the air, and Hajime heard a distant flapping noise, growing louder. A cream-colored roll of paper fluttered out of nowhere along an ink quill and set themselves on the ground in front of him.

“Your contract,” said Enoshima. “Write your name on the blank spot. Monokuma, show him.”

Hajime looked over the paper, which had unrolled before him. There was writing on it, probably a set of terms and conditions like every contract. The monochrome bear - _Monokuma_ (sheesh, talk about a simple name… all she did was name it how it looked) walked over from Enoshima’s side and pointed at the quill, then at an empty space besides the writing on the paper, clearly indicating where Hajime should write.

Normally, he’d read it to be sure what he was getting into, but whether he liked it or not he’d have to do it anyways, so there was no need for that.

Hajime picked up the quill and carefully wrote, in clear kanji, _Hinata Hajime._

As soon as he was finished the paper slid out from under his arms and into Enoshima’s waiting ones. Monokuma plucked the quill out of Hajime’s hand, red eye gleaming, and set it on Enoshima’s desk. 

The woman in question was looking over his contact. “Hm, Hinata Hajime, eh? A simple and straightforward enough name, unlike some _other_ annoyingly complicated ones. Well…” 

And what happened next shocked Hajime beyond belief.

Enoshima held a hand over his name, written in ink on the paper, and flexed her fingers, and right before Hajime’s eyes, two of the three characters that made up his name quite literally _peeled themselves_ off the paper and floated in the air towards Enoshima’s waiting hand, which closed over the characters, hiding them from Hajime’s view.

Inexplicably, Hajime felt something shift deep within his core. 

“Your name is mine now,” said Enoshima, baring her teeth in a grin. “I hold you within my grasp, and from now on forwards, your name will be _Nichi_. Understood, Nichi?” She snapped her fingers, and Hajime stood up straight, nodding.

Enoshima paused for a second, eyes narrowed, then asked, “What is your name?”

Hajime blinked. “Ha- Nichi.” The moment he said his given name, Nichi couldn’t remember what he was going to say before that. _Probably just some startled slip-up._

Enoshima grinned, nodding. “You’re ready to go now.” She looked to the side. “Ah, Hebi, you’re here. Good. We’ve got a new worker here. A human, notably. Take him down to begin his work in the bathhouse.”

Nichi looked to the side and saw the boy from earlier, the one who had helped him, standing at the door and looking at him impassively. Nichi could tell that Hebi recognized him, but was clearly hiding it so Enoshima couldn't tell. 

_I have to play dumb about knowing him too. I can’t give it away this early._

“You,” said Hebi, eyeing him up and down. “What is your name?”

“Nichi.”

Was it a trick of the light, or did something flash in Hebi’s eyes as Nichi spoke the words? Upon a second glance there was nothing.

Maybe it _had_ been a trick of the light.

“Very well.” Hebi turned and walked out the door. “Come with me.”

As Nichi followed him, walking through the numerous pairs of double doors, he heard Enoshima speaking.

“See that, Monokuma? That human… he’s got _hope_ in his eyes. Hope that he’ll make it through here, and save his parents! Hope that he’ll get a happily ever after! Hah! I’ll take all that hope of his… and twist it into a beautiful despair!” What follows is a maniacal, high-pitched burst of laughter that chilled Nichi to his core as he walked out the last pair of doors behind Hebi, who called the elevator.

Enoshima spoke again, her voice carrying through the doors. “I wonder if the despair of a human is any different than that of a spirit… Maybe it’ll be more abundant, maybe it’ll take longer. After all, humans’ bodies have a more physical presence than spirits since they roam the material world. One thing’s for sure, though, it’ll be a _very_ interesting experiment! I really should _thank_ whoever helped him.” The last sentence, despite the words, sounded cruel and calculating.

The elevator arrived at that moment, and Hebi stepped in, Nichi right behind him. As the doors closed, Enoshima’s last words followed him.

“Ah, I can’t wait until his spirit breaks… and when it does, and I see the resignation blooming in his eyes as all his hope for himself and his parents fades away… I’ll make sure to get every drop of that _delicious_ despair! Hyaaahahahahahahahahahaaaaah!”

Her voice faded away as the elevator descended. Nichi shivered momentarily.

After another moment of silence, he turned to Hebi, but only managed to get out “Heb–” before he was cut off by the boy in question. “Do not refer to me like that.”

“H-huh?”

Hebi looked at him. “When you are here you must refer to me as Master Hebi. It is customary for all the workers here.”

“Uh… alright.” _Master_ Hebi? What the hell, that sounded ridiculous! But again, Nichi reminded himself that if he wanted to make it here, he'd have to follow the rules.

The rest of the elevator ride was silent, until it came to a stop with a small ‘ding!’ on what was probably the ground floor. Hebi walked out and beckoned him to follow. 

\---

Standing in front of some kind of high counter covered in baskets with the spirit workers of the bathhouse surrounding them from every direction like a circle, Nichi wondered how this all happened in the span of less than a day.

A small girl wearing an orange kimono with yellow hair styled into twin curved pigtails eyed him from behind the counter, a fan in her hand. She looked down at Nichi, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “Eyuck! What’s this ugly human doing here? He _reeks!_ ”

Nichi held back the urge to smell himself. He couldn’t smell anything, but maybe spirits just had a better sense of this thing, especially since he was a human. He remembered the spirits running around claiming they’d smelled a human on the bridge. Yeah, that made sense. 

Hebi, standing next to him, announced to everyone that Nichi was a new worker here and would be joining them in the bathhouse, and to get him situated here. Literally all the spirits fell into chaos at those words - the blonde girl with pigtails yelled “Huh?!” and waved the fan at Nichi like she could send him or maybe his smell far away from her. _Rude._ Nichi resisted the urge to grab the fan out of her hands. The other spirits weren’t pleased either. Their voices clamored as they protested and argued and refused to believe it.

“A human? Here!? Are you serious?!”

“No way! He reeks! He’ll stink up the place!”

“Are you crazy?! Who in their right mind would hire a _human_ here?”

Hebi rebuked their complaints with one remark, saying, “No need to worry about the smell. Three days of eating spirit food and his human smell will eventually fade. As for the other matter, Enoshima herself has chosen to hire him here. He’s already signed a contract - your objections are meaningless.” The second sentence silenced everyone’s voices, as they murmured in shock. 

“Enoshima hired him?”

“But why? He’s a human…”

Hebi silenced the entire room as he spoke again. His deep voice, when used loudly, was booming. “Why Enoshima decided to hire him is irrelevant. Regardless of the reason, he will be working here. One of you will shoulder the task of supervising him for the next few days.” His eyes scanned the collection of spirits gathered, and landed on someone to the right. “Izumi, take him under your wing for now.” 

Nichi turned to see Izumi, the girl who had helped him earlier get to Enoshima’s floor, standing among the spirits, her deep red hair sticking out among the more calm colors of the other workers. 

The girl in question blinked and said indignantly “Huh!? Why me!?” 

Interestingly, the blonde girl also objected. “Hey! This guy’s going with big sis Izumi?! No!”

_Big sis?_

“It is not your place to argue on the matter, Yadoriki.” replied Hebi evenly. “Izumi, you spoke of desiring an assistant, did you not? Someone to help you with your work. Well, here he is. Should he prove to be inadequate, we will deal with him then. As for everyone else, you all may return to your duties.”

At that, the spirits dispersed, some of them grumbling all the while. The blonde girl - _Yadoriki?_ \- looked angry. Really angry. Nichi blinked nervously at Izumi, who was also looking back at him, arms on her hips. _She looks… really irritated… Should I be worried?_

As though he could read his thoughts, Hebi tapped him on the shoulder and whispered in his ear quietly, “Do not worry. She may seem tough, but she is also responsible. You will be in safe hands.”

Nichi turned behind to see Hebi already walking away. Eyes still lingering on the retreating figure, he blinked awkwardly. As much as he wouldn’t say it, Hebi’s words had reassured him. Nichi already felt slightly more confident about whatever was to come.

Suddenly someone grabbed his hand and he found himself being pulled along behind someone, who turned out to be Izumi, who huffed in annoyance. “Don’t just stand there, we need to get you properly situated here. You’re a boy, aren’t you?” Nichi nodded. “Then you need to step up! It may be confusing in the beginning, but that’s no excuse later on. Got that?”

Nichi nodded again. “Y-yeah.” Truth be told, she _did_ have a point. He’d have to adapt to this place and its rules, and quickly too, from the looks of it. The other spirits would do their best to make his life hell here, and Nichi had no idea how _long_ he’d even be here.

Eventually, after going through hall after hall, they stood in front of a screen door. Izumi faced him. “You’re a boy, so you can’t stay in the girls’ living quarters. You’ll be with the boys. Might be a bit chaotic sometimes, but whatever.” She opened the screen door and stepped in. “Hey! Anybody in here?”

A voice yelled “Coming!” in reply, before a boy ran into view. He was wearing the standard uniform for the bathhouse, as Nichi had noticed from all the other spirits who had been gathered earlier, only it was neon yellow, with a black apron. _How gaudy…_ The boy also had vibrant pink hair and eyes, and… shark teeth? The boy’s teeth were sharp and looked more like fangs. _What the…? Is that natural?_

It was strange, but again something tugged at Nichi’s mind, something about the boy with his bright pink hair looking slightly reminiscent of something recent...

He was pulled out of his thoughts by the boy speaking. “Whaddaya want?” The pink-haired guy scratched his ear.

“Can you take the new guy here and get him a uniform?” said Izumi, patting a hand on Nichi’s back. “And also help him settle in the dorm? We girls can’t exactly do that.”

“Huh? New guy? Well, sure…” the boy trailed off as he took a good look at Nichi, before jumping back in shock. “AAAAAAGH!!! Th-the human! Are you serious?!”

Nichi slapped a hand to his forehead. _Sheesh, man… considerate much?_

Izumi seemed to agree on that point, sighing in irritation. “Jeez, don’t freak out like that! Just take this boy here and help him settle in, and I’ll deal with the rest! You can at least do that, right?”

“Technically, this isn’t even _my_ area of expertise! I’m supposed to be working on something mechanical! Like machinery or something!” The boy replied indignantly, brandishing a wrench.

“Your job is mainly to fix anything that breaks in here, and right now nothing’s broken, so you can help with this! Just help him get into place here, it can’t be that hard, unless you’re saying you’re so lazy you can’t?”

“Hey! Don’t just judge me like that!” The boy looked nervously between Nichi and Izumi for a long moment before shrugging reluctantly. “Yeah, fine! I’ll deal with this human for the time being, but you take him later, got that?”

“Good to hear!” Izumi pushed Nichi into the room and left, closing the door behind her. Her voice called back as she walked away, footsteps fading. “I’ll come get you tomorrow to begin work!”

Soon enough it was just the two of them in the dorm room. Nichi looked around. There were comforters and makeshift beds all along the floor, and along the walls were closets and drawers. There were screen doors along the wall opening up to a wooden balcony. Nichi stared for a few moments at the sky through the balcony before his gaze is drawn back to the boy. 

The pink-haired boy was eyeing him cautiously, as though he was an animal that could attack him or something. Nichi blinked nervously. Should he say something? _Do_ something? Introduce himself? As he ran through option after option in his head, the other boy ended up speaking first, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“My name’s Hidari. You better remember it, got that?!” Nichi nodded, taken aback by the boy - Hidari’s - explosive behavior. And he was _loud_ , too. “Uh, so… like, what’s your name?”

“Oh, it’s Nichi.” 

“Huh? Nichi? Like, day? Pffft! How lame!” Hidari covered his mouth with one hand, laughing all the while.

Nichi’s eye twitched. There was no way in _hell_ he’d let this guy make fun of him less than five minutes into their meeting when _his_ name was just as ridiculous, if not more. “You’re gonna say that to me, with a name like _that? Hidari?_ Your name literally just means ‘left’!”

“Hey! Don’t be mean, newbie!” _You’re the one who started this!_ “Especially to the guy who’s oh-so-graciously helping you out here!” 

Nichi wanted to rebuke him again, but realizing there was no point, he decided not to drag this out any longer, since Hidari _was_ right on his second point. Choose your battles and all. “Ugh, fine. You’re right. Now can you actually get to helping me?” A part of his mind was telling him not to purposely antagonize anyone else, because he still had no idea how anything works here, but it was overshadowed by the majority of him that was just tired of all the bullshit that had happened today.

“Damn right I’m right!” _No, you’re left._ “And try asking me politely!”

 _Are you fucking kidding me._ Nichi sighed. “Hidari, can you _please_ help me?” He couldn’t help the note of aggravation that slips into his tone.

“There! See? And since you asked so nicely, I _will_ help you! Now, take off your clothes.”

Nichi blinked. “ _Huh?_ What? Why?!"

“So you can get the standard bathhouse uniform, duh!” He said it like it was obvious, like Nichi should've instantly known that when he had literally only gotten a job here less than an hour ago. 

As quickly as he could, Nichi took off his shirt and pants, and folded them into a neat pile on the floor. Hidari, for his credit, wasn’t even looking at him, which made Nichi feel a bit better. The boy in question was looking through one of the closets, mumbling to himself about sizes and whatnot, before pulling out a set of clothes. 

Hidari turned back to him, who was standing awkwardly to the side waiting for the clothes. His eyes scoured the human’s mostly-exposed body, and he let out a whistle. “Wow, dude, you’ve actually got some muscle on you! Good thing I brought you the medium-sized clothes instead of small on a hunch.”

Nichi looked away, fighting the blush of embarrassment on his face over the comment, and hurriedly put on the clothes. When he was done, he looked over himself. He was wearing a cream-colored loose onesie with elbow-length sleeves and puffy trousers that reached to right above his knees, with a green apron over the lower half.

“Hm, the color fits you.” Hidari commented nonchalantly. “For a human.”

Nichi shrugged. “Um… What happens now? Do I start work?”

“Huh? Oh, no.” Hidari cast a glance out the balcony. “It’s already nighttime. Work’s pretty much done for the day. Soon enough the other boys who live in this dorm will be coming back to sleep for the night. Your work starts tomorrow. Izumi’ll pick you up, I guess. I mean, she said she would, so, yeah. At least I won’t have to deal with you much.”

 _Ouch, man._ “Then what do I…?”

“You ain’t _got_ nothin’ to do! Sheesh, just stand there or go to sleep or whatever for tomorrow! Do humans not understand simple things?”

Nichi glared at him and deadpanned, “Well, we humans _do_ understand simple things, and we can also understand complicated things for that matter. It’s just that being dragged into an entirely different world that I didn't even know existed until a few hours ago and losing my parents and having to get caught up in all this so suddenly is kind of confusing, okay?!” His voice had risen as he spoke, until he was nearly yelling at the end. By the time he was done, Hidari was staring after him open-mouthed at the outburst. Waving him off, Nichi walked over to one of the futons on the floor and tucked himself in. _This day’s been crazy enough already… I should just sleep it off. I’ll deal with all of this tomorrow._

He closed his eyes, but then heard some shuffling noises and the sound of something hitting the floor in front of him. Cracking open one eye, he saw Hidari sitting in front of him, legs crossed, looking apologetic. 

“Uh… sorry.” The pink-haired boy rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. Nichi’s eyes widened in surprise. Out of all the things, he hadn’t expected that. Hidari continued, “I shoulda realized that, uh, you’d be having a hard time, with everything and all, and maybe I, uh, jumped to conclusions about it… Agh, what I’m tryin’ to say is sorry, okay?!” 

Nichi blinked, looking down at the floor in contemplation for a moment, before he sat up to face Hidari properly.

“...Thanks. That… means a lot to me.”

“Eh, no problem. Anyways, you…” Hidari bit his nails. A nervous tic? “How’d you even get stuck in here? Were ya all by yourself?”

“Oh, um…” Nichi scratched his head. “My parents and I were just visiting and checking out this area, but they ate some of the random food set out here and it became night and they turned into animals and I had no idea what was going on and then I got caught up in the bathhouse and had to get a job here so the spirits couldn’t harm me and now here I am and I have no idea how things are going to go and I’m confused as hell and I don’t know what to do!” By the time he finished he was out of breath, having said everything without breathing at all in between.

Hidari raised an eyebrow and whistled. “Wo-ow. That’s one heck of a tale. Also, your parents are idiots. Who the hell finds a bunch of food lying around at an abandoned site and just eats it? That's so suspicious, dude. Like, seriously.”

Nichi had to agree with him on that count. That _had_ been rather stupid of his parents.

“Okay, now that _that’s_ out of the way, I wanna ask ya somethin’ else. It’s been eating at me ever since you got in here.” Hidari suddenly looked alert and eager, startling him. _What the heck? What could be so serious for h–_

“So can ya tell me all about the machines in the human world?” 

Nichi sweatdropped. _That’s_ what he really wanted to get at? He’d seemed so serious, too!

“Seriously?” he sighed, before shrugging. “Well, fine. Anything specific?” 

“Hmm… Ah! Ships! Like the metal flying ones you humans use! I see them going by the skies sometimes!

“You mean planes?” Nichi cocked his head. “That’s what we call them.”

“Yeah, I guess. If that’s what you call them. So tell me about ‘em!”

They spent the next few minutes with Nichi explaining different kinds of planes and how they worked, the other listening all the while and throwing little comments in here and there. Hidari was especially amazed at the fact that the very first airplane was built with simple wood. 

Right now, Nichi had gotten to the topic of space travel - Hidari seemed to be even more intrigued with that than planes, which made sense to him. It _was_ space. 

“So you’re tellin’ me that humans have already gone out to _space?_ Like, decades ago? Holy crap!”

“Yeah!” Nichi nodded. “We’ve sent one to the moon, and some others to orbit around and observe other planets as well! Human technology and machinery have developed and advanced like _crazy_ over the last century!”

“How did ya even manage that? Like, there’s spirits for stuff in space like the stars and moon and sun, so–”

“Wait, there are spirits for things like that?” Now Nichi was the one staring in wonder.

“Huh? Ah, yeah. Those are like, really, _really_ big and powerful ones though. Those ones, you don’t ever cross. If you piss one of ‘em off, well, rest in pieces, pal.”

He stared at the other boy who seemed so casual about it. Then again, he was a spirit, so it wouldn’t be as much of a deal to him. But still, it sounded foreboding and terrifying. Hidari notices Nichi’s unnerved expression and shrugged. “But hey, chances are ya won’t meet one, so don’t worry. Now, let’s get back to what we were talkin’ about earlier!”

“Uh... alright."

Nichi had been in the middle of explaining rocket ships when the doors had opened and a group of boys had pooled in, in various moods, laughing and talking and groaning.

They stopped as soon as they walked in, taking in the sight of Nichi and Hidari sitting on the floor together. Then one of them, a short, blond boy with a blond buzzcut and an aggressive expression stepped forward and narrowed his eyes.

“What the fuck is this?”

“Uhhh...!” Hidari jumped up, holding his arms out. Clearly he was trying to come up with something to say to explain this situation.

“Why the hell is the **_human_** _here_? And what the fuck are you doing talking to him?” The boy spat out the word ‘human’ as if it was poison. That made Nichi feel irritated. What the hell did he ever do to this guy to warrant something like that? It wasn’t like he’d had any choice in the matter, whether it had been being a human or getting stuck here!

“I-I was just askin’ him some stuff! About machines in the human world and all...”

“Tch. You and your obsession what machines,” muttered the blond boy. He glared at Nichi. “Don’t expect me to be all nice and open with you like this guy here, human. You come near me, contract or no contract, you’ll regret it.” With that, he stalked over to one of the farther futons near the corner of the room and tucked himself in, clearly not in the mood to talk to anyone else.

As if a spell was broken by the short boy’s outburst, everyone else began also heading to their futons and unfastening their aprons. Nichi noticed most of the spirits giving him side-eyed and suspicious looks. He wanted to look away, but instead found himself glaring back at them until they looked away, refusing to let them get to him before he even got started. 

One big guy with long dark hair and red eyes wearing a dark green uniform waved at him cheerfully and jubilantly said, “Hi! Very nice to meet you! Goku hopes we can get along, human!”

Nichi’s eyes bulged out as he stared at the guy in front of him, who was ridiculously muscular. It was a wonder his clothes hadn’t torn at the seams with how his muscles bulged through the uniform. He looked like he could pick Nichi up and throw him out the window with one arm effortlessly. But he seemed really friendly, though. Nichi held up a hand in a wave and replied, “Yeah, it’s nice to meet you too, uh, Goku.” That seemed to be the guy’s name.

Seemingly satisfied, Goku smiled and walked off to one of the bigger futons.

Another guy, also ridiculously buff and muscular (What the fuck! Literally!) with short black hair and hazel eyes (which both have vertical adjacent scars lining over them - how’d he get those?) walked over. He was wearing a navy blue and white uniform complete with black apron.

“Hey, new guy!”

Nichi looked up at him, wondering what this guy could want.

“Your voice is way too quiet! And stop making yourself look so small! Stand up and _speak_ up louder! Stand up! C’mon!”

Confused, he scrambled onto his feet. The guy put his hands on his hips.

“What’s your name?”

“It’s Nichi…”

The guy shook his head. “Nope! Your voice was way too quiet! You may be new here _and_ a human, but newbie or not, human or not, you also have to pick up your end of the work, you hear? Now straighten yourself and put your back into it! Speak loud and proud! What is your name?”

“It’s Nichi!”

“Louder!”

“MY NAME IS NICHI DAMMIT!”

To his surprise, the (second) big guy started laughing uproariously. “Gahahahahahaha! Good! _That’s_ how you do it! As for me, I… AM NEKO!!!!!”

Nichi paused. This guy couldn’t be serious. “What.”

“Could you two loudmouthed morons shut it? Some of us are trying to sleep here!” groused one of the spirits tucked in his futon, clearly aggravated. 

“Gahahaha! My bad, sorry!” laughed… Neko? (Why the hell was his name something like Neko? Were all the big guys here nice but with ridiculous names???) 

“Your- Your name is _Neko?_ ” asked Nichi, pointing a finger at the person in question. 

“Hm? Yeah.” Neko scratched his nose. “What about it?”

“Uh… Never mind. The name just caught me off guard…” Nichi really shouldn’t have overreacted. It wasn’t that big of a deal. Maybe spirit names here were just weird like that or something.

“Well, I look forward to having you as a fellow worker here!” With those words, Neko lumbered over to his futon and instantly went to sleep.

He looked around, but with Neko sleeping, he was the only one standing up. All the other spirits were either asleep or trying to go to sleep. Hidari was already asleep as well, his mouth partially open and drooling. Gross. Well.

Shrugging, Nichi turned out the lights and went and tucked himself in his futon as well, hoping to get a good night’s sleep for tomorrow.

But sleep didn’t come to him easily that night.

\---

His dreams that night were an amalgamation of the day’s events - he was full of excitement, standing by his parents, like a little child again. There was a long, dark tunnel, which he walked through. It seemed to go on forever and ever and ever with no end in sight. Finally, there was a speck of light - far-off at the end of the tunnel. He ran towards it, and after a long, nearly excruciating moment, he burst out of the end of the tunnel, to a colorful land.

A wide, grassy clearing was spread out before him, and he couldn’t help but feel… underwhelmed, like there was supposed to be something else here as well. He turned to see his parents were nowhere to be found. He walked over to the mouth of the tunnel and called out for them through it, but nobody answered him. 

He was alone now.

Maybe there was someone else around here?

Walking through the clearing for several minutes, he called out as loud as he could for anyone to answer, only to receive no response or acknowledgement at all. 

He was about to give up when he stumbled across a small river going horizontally past him. There were no bridges anywhere and he couldn’t find anything to help him get across. Something caught his eye inside the river and he knelt down to get a closer look.

A shimmering, indigo fish swam in the water, going in wavy circles. For some reason this agitated him, but he doesn’t know why. There was something about that fish… something familiar… something… concerning?

Something brushed against his leg, taking his focus off the fish and he leapt back, startled, to see a ferret. His eyes widened. He looked between the fish and the ferret in confusion. The two of them together… He’d seen this before. This was familiar. His mouth moved, but no sound came out.

And reality began to shift around him.

The sky suddenly darkened, and everywhere little yellow lights were flickering out of nowhere, like streetlights. Hazy shapes roamed at the edge of his vision, morphing and twisting. He looked to see the fish and the ferret had suddenly disappeared.

Suddenly, something in front of him _burst,_ like an explosion, only there was no pain or heat. Something started rising out of the ground in front of him with bright burning lights and everything started warping, melting around him into a pool of color - blue and yellow and black and white and red and pink–

It was as if he was having some kind of psychedelic color-manic hallucination. It hurt. It hurt his eyes and his head _so bad_ –

Everything was chaos, his mind was crowded with all of the noise. He was drowning. He couldn’t see, couldn’t feel, couldn’t think, couldn’t _breathe–_

Something appeared, loose and murky, and sluggish - a dark shadow of a figure. The only discernible feature was their eyes - one faded gray and one shining red. 

He couldn’t help but feel that he’d seen those eyes before, somewhere, rather distantly.

The person said something - he couldn’t see their mouth moving, but he could hear faint sounds coming from them, crackling and breaking through, like it was glitching. It was as though they were trying to tell him something.

“Lis… to… me…” There was static, garbling their words - he could barely hear anything concretely.

He cocked his head in confusion at the person. _What?_

“Yo… am… is… ot… ich...”

_What are you trying to say?_

Those piercing eyes locked on him, and the person repeated their attempts, more forcefully this time. 

“...j…e… H… Ha––”

And his body jolted as though he was falling.

\---

Nichi jerked awake, hand over his mouth to stifle his gasp. Luckily, no one had heard or reacted to his movement, still sleeping soundly. 

What… What had that been?

The nightmarish dream had started normal, then gotten a bit confusing - he could understand the tunnel, the animals, and the weird colors, but what had that been at the end?

There had been someone, trying to speak to him, trying to tell him something. _But what?_

And those eyes… Nichi had definitely seen them somewhere before.

He was getting really sick of things being familiar but not knowing where they were from. It made him want to tear at his hair sometimes.

Nichi looked tiredly at the sky through the opening in the screen doors, where the moon shone bright, surrounded by little stars blinking against the night.

_“There’s spirits for stuff in space, like the moon and sun and stars.”_

What did the spirits of those things look like? Were they huge, gleaming and majestic? As divine and powerful as Hidari had said? Were they watching him right now, watching over everything going on from where they were?

He wondered what the spirits here in the bathhouse, his now fellow workers, represented, if they even represented anything.

What kind of spirit was Enoshima? Or Hebi? What did they represent?

Nichi shook his head. _All these doubts… They’re just going to confuse me. I can’t focus on that right now. I should just go back to sleep._

 _If I even manage to_ **_get_ ** _any sleep…_

Regardless, he lay his head back down and closed his eyes.

Just before he drifted off again, the question of the spirits, paired with his dream, returned, and he realized whose eyes had been in his dream.

They had been Hebi’s.

—-

The next day, as the boys woke up and got ready, Izumi came to get him.

“Well?” she prompted, arms crossed.

Nichi hurriedly put on his apron and practically ran out of the door, nearly running past Izumi.

She stopped him from running in a wall by grabbing him by the sleeve, leading to him falling on his back on the floor. Hauling himself to his feet, he heard the other spirits snickering, and pointedly ignored them as he followed Izumi.

“You at least know this is a bathhouse, right?” Izumi asked him. He nodded. He’d gotten the basic idea of the place from Mura, but let Izumi keep talking. “Good. See, here, spirits come to be cleaned and to relax from, well, everything. Mainly the duties here are cleaning the place, preparing things for our guests, and helping them get cleaned and happy here. In return, they pay us, which keeps this place going.”

It sounded simple enough, really. Just cleaning and assisting, just like the chores at his house and school. He doesn't know why he’d worried - it sounded like he’d be able to manage here.

They arrived in the main hall, full of other spirits, awake and bustling around. Izumi told him to wait while she went and asked what to do for today with him.

Nichi stood around aimlessly, having no idea where to go until Izumi came back. He pointedly ignored the stares of the other spirits and them plugging in their noses and complaining about him and his smell.

_Well, it’s not like either of us really wanted this, what do you expect me to do?!_

Izumi was talking to a large frog with… a mustache, wearing robes and a hat. Okay. 

After a few minutes she nodded and walked over to him. “We got cleaning duty today. Looks like they’re actually going easy on you for your first day. That’s unexpected, though it probably won't last long. Come to think of it, what’s your name?”

“Nichi.”

“Well, Nichi, follow me.”

They walked to a wide room filled with towels and buckets of all sizes, and grass and dirt spread out all over messily. Izumi handed him a mop. “We’re gonna be collecting the grass into one big pile to throw away. I’ll also teach you how to manage the water and all that.”

With that, they began mopping the grass into one big pile in the corner. Far grass, it was heavier and harder to do than it looked. Was spirit grass just heavier than normal grass or something?

As they work, Izumi grumbled in irritation. “Seriously… those guys really don’t know how to do anything right, do they? Leaving it like this... I swear, why Hebi chose _me_ of all spirits to put with you in the first place, I’ll never know.”

Nichi paused in the middle of his mopping.

_“She may seem tough, but she is responsible. You’ll be in good hands.”_

“He said that you were responsible. That I’d be in good hands.”

Izumi stopped and looked at him. “He said that?”

Nichi nodded at her.

A faint smile crossed her face. “Well, he was damn right! I _do_ know what I’m doing, unlike some of you boys!”

 _Wow, thanks._

\---

Once they were done mopping and throwing away the dead grass, Izumi explained to him the facilities of the bathhouse. 

“See these big pipe-looking faucets? They distribute water collected from the lake and river outside. We mainly use them to clean the floors and bathtubs, by filling up buckets with them and splashing it on the floor. Actually, we may as well try that today so you get an idea. Fill up those buckets with water.”

Nichi obliged and did so, and the two of them splashed the water all across the floors to dislodge any clinging bits of dirt or grass.

“Then we collect the water and splash it outside.” Izumi told him. At the questioning look on his face she elaborated. “We can’t leave the floor here slippery. The water just helps collect and clean it.”

Painstakingly and time-consumingly, they mopped up all the water and collected it back in the buckets. Izumi led him to a side door to the outside of the building and opened it, then tipped the buckets and let the water out.

“Is it okay to just let out the water like that?”

“Yeah, that’s what you’re supposed to do. The water helps nourish the plants and weeds out here - and unlike you humans, spirit water can’t be contaminated by your methods, so it’s indefinitely reusable. Now come on.”

Ignoring the jab at humans since she was technically right, Nichi followed her back in to continue their work.

\---

Nichi had never thought that he’d be happy to go to sleep, but after the grueling work, his arms were more sore than the time he’d had to write a five-page essay by hand in an hour. The moment he returned to the dorm alongside the other spirits he collapsed into his futon to rest.

“Tired, huh?” He heard Hidari mutter. “Yeah, me too.”

“Yo, you better have actually done some work, human!” called out an orange-haired spirit with a goatee.

“Yeah, or else… Damn, he reeks.” That was the blond spirit - the one who had been irritated at the sight of him yesterday. 

“Can’t be helped. Three days and all. Soon enough.” said another spirit.

Nichi let out a bored moan into his pillow. “I get it, really.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever! All of you go to sleep!” Neko’s voice rang out. “Sleep is important to wake up properly prepared, so tuck yourselves IIINNNNNNNN!!!”

_Does he have to be so loud?_

But with or without Neko’s advice, Nichi was planning on sleeping well tonight, unlike the night before. He covered himself with the blanket and fell asleep as soon as his eyes closed.

This time, there were no dreams in his sleep.

\---

Nichi drifted awake, his eyes opening slowly.

It took the silence of all the sleeping bodies around him and the meager light filtering through the window to realize that he’d woken up way earlier than usual. From the looks of the sky, it was somewhere near dawn, which meant around four in the morning, if spirits even measured their time the same way humans did.

_Why? I was so tired..._

Nichi already knew that it wasn’t going to be easy going back to sleep. For now, he settled for looking casually out of the window through half-lidded eyes. The sky was a pale gray-blue, and the sun still hadn’t come up yet.

_Maybe the sun spirit was sleeping too..._

Nichi didn’t know how long he stared at the sky - it could have been a few minutes or an hour. The concept of time to him has completely turned on its head, varying from just day or night, awake or asleep.

After who knew how long, when he _still_ hadn't managed to fall asleep again, he heard the door slide open and someone step inside. Nichi stayed silent and didn’t move, thinking it was probably just another spirit who had gone out for… something, and had returned. _Come to think of it, I haven’t seen anyone using a bathroom, including me…_

Instead, the footsteps grew closer until he was sure the person was right behind him. Still, he didn’t move. Were they going to do something to him? Hurt him? Why? Just because he was human? That irritated him. That made him so angry, he wasn’t going to just take this lying down–

A hand touched his shoulder, and he whirled around to face the spirit, only to freeze upon seeing that it was Hebi. The guy didn’t even look surprised or startled, only raising an eyebrow at him. _That damn smug–_

“Come outside to the bridge. There is something I will show you. Come alone, and make sure no one else notices your absence.”

After looking at him carefully for a moment, Hebi stood up and walked away, hand leaving his shoulder and his footsteps fading away as the door slid shut, leaving Nichi the only one awake in the room again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this chapter was a hassle but I finally managed it!!!
> 
> So I thought I'd do the same as the official Spirited Away movie and have it be when someone signs a contract, kanji parts of their name are literally taken from them, creating a whole new word/name nowhere near the original so the person/spirit can't recall their name.
> 
> Also I chose Mahiru bc she's responsible (in the official games she helps ppl w laundry and cleans up and explains stuff to the others she would've been helpful if she hadn't died at the start tho rip lmao.
> 
> Anyways I hope you guys liked this. Thanks to Mr_Dumpling for helping me beta and tweak out my stuff they're amazing.


End file.
